Logan Canyon Environmental Study

LOGAN CANYON ENVIRONMENTAL STUDY
PUBLIC MEETING
LOGAN, UTAH
September 23, 1986
COMMENTS FOLLOWING CH2M HILL PRESENTATION:
Question: I just wanted to ask why is this study limited to that
segment you showed.
Margaret Johnson: That was defined by the UDOT. Stan, would you
like to elaborate on that?
S. Nuffer: That is correct, we are referring to the section from
Right Fork on over the hill to Garden City, and for a basis of com­parison,
the lower level of the canyon as well for certain types of
analysis as to what were the effects of some of the improvements.
Does that answer your question?
Question: Is it because this portion seems to have the greatest
concentration of problems?
S. Nuffer: As Commissioner Weston explained, there are certain
things that need to be done in that canyon, such as the bridge
replacement, and there are some identified areas that could be
improved so it was necessary to conduct an environmental study. So
the opinion was tp look at the canyon as a whole so we can address
the problem once and for all so these things can be done as the
arise.
S. Barker: The portion of the canyon below Right Hand Fork has
already had improvement projects. So we wanted to focus our atten­.
tion on the other area that has not been improved.
Question: I was interested in your overlays. Do you also have
overlays of the traffic patterns for the last 20 years?
S. Nuffer: We don't have an overlay for that.
Question: How does that compare with your projected trend? What
is the trend for the last 20 years? Is there an upward trend in
the same fashion?
S. Nuffer: The trend that we have projected there reflects about a
2% annual growth rate. This is a very conservative growth rate.
Much less than has been used in the past.
Rudy Lukez: I just wanted to point out a couple of things I men­tioned
in a discussion concerning this meeting, and also why the
public may wish to disregard this information. One thing in par­ticular
is the safety data. Last week we had a chance to look at
the data and the conservationists reviewed it and we came up with
some serious flaws in it. At that time we asked that the safety
data not be discussed at this meeting. That was essentially going
to be our agreement for tonight, that the safety data that had been
collected and analyzed to this point was not correct. And so it
would not be proper at this point for anybody to make any conclu­sions
or to draw any conclusions from that safety data until it is
better analyzed and better reviewed.
C. Forsgren: What Rudy is saying is basically correct. We have
not completed the analysis. We are looking at the accidents. We
are looking at the locations on the road that accidents may occur
in clusters, but we have not gotten to the point where we can draw
conclusions. The study done by UDOT several years ago identified
places in the canyon where we might look to do some improvements.
Their objective was different than ours. We are looking at a
different type of situation from a different perspective. So the
message we wanted to convey tonight relative to safety is that
these are the things that we are looking at.
Question: Based on what? You just said you don't have data to
look at and that is the third time you've said it.
C. Forsgren: All we are prepared to say is that at some places in
the road there have been more accidents in the past six years than
in other places. Whether that is significant or not, we haven't
determined. That is all we can say at this point. We have some
data that we had reason to believe was reliable, but in looking at
it closer, we now question it. The only thing we are saying now is
that we are looking at these things and when we are satisfied that
our conclusions are correct, then we will come out and say these
are our conclusions. And until we can say that, we are not prepared
to do so. That is, in essence, what we hope to convey tonight.
The only thing I can say for certain, and it is just simply
there are places where there have been more accidents. Whether
that means anything, we don't know. We can't say that and we are
not going to. And I appreciate Rudy bringing this up, because we
do not want to convey the wrong impressions.
R. Lukez: It might be worthwhile to mention that when accidents
are counted it includes everything from someone getting killed on
the one extreme to somebody running off the ditch because of
carelessness or going to fast around a corner on an icy road in the
middle of a blizzard. So you do get quite a range of accidents so
there is a corresponding severity index for that.
C. Forsgren: I apologize if we have created some confusion on that
and if you want to jump on somebody, you can jump on me. At this
point all we want to tell you is what we are doing and not what we
have concluded, because we have really not concluded anything.
Page 2 of 16
R Lukez: The only thing we wanted to make sure was pointed out
tonight was that the data which has been used to this point to make
projections out to the year 2010 is not good data, that the data is
very scattered and there are a lot of conclusions you could draw
from it. Using straight linear techniques such as they
used tonight you are able to come up with the corresponding numbers
that they have and from there they are able to draw upon that data
and come up with various conclusions for the current levels of
service that are defined by the government from A to F.
C. Forsgren: We might point out that the numbers we are talking
about are summer numbers.
R. Lukez: Yes, that is correct. It is important to realize that
we are talking about summer numbers used in traffic flows and
projections for the future - that is through the three summer
months and that is heavily weighted by the data from the 4th of
July Weekend, the 24th of July Weekend and by Labor Day and from
Memorial Day and several other scattered weekends. So you are
looking at trends that are very representative of major
recreational highways where people are going to recreate for the
weekend. They are going to another recreational destination and
because of the way the numbers are sort of skewed, especially along
those holiday weekends, those peak periods when everybody in the
world is travelling, it helps to determine the various design
hourly volume rates and then you can get those levels of services
that some are very scary, no doubt, in the 'E' range. In this
case, I believe we are shooting for an ideal level of "C" service
when doing the mathematical analysis.
So I think those are things to really keep in mind - the safety
data is not complete and no conclusions should be drawn from it at
all, and the 1.9% figure is all based on statistical data which is
not very good data. When you start building statistical correla­tions
you don't come out very well. Also, the 1.9% figure is a very
low number. I keep hearing from UDOT time and time again, "Gee, we
like to see 4% or 6% as a growth rate in order to design new high­ways."
So that's another thing to keep in mind, it is very low,
and depending upon how you interpret those numbers you can come to
many different conclusions, and when you are talking about levels
of service and you are hearing "D" or "E" level of service keep in
mind that it is based on busy summer weekends, and only during
those summer weekends.
C. Forsgren: One thing that hasn't been decided yet is the level
of service that we want to achieve. That is one of the purposes of
these meetings, is to try and establish what is it we want. Do we
want "A" or are we willing to live with "B" or "D" or something in
between. This may be a little confusing to you, but one of the
objectives is to find out what are we going to live with up there,
or what do we want to have in the way of services. - Is it alright
the way it is, can we live with the delays which we are experienc­ing,
or can we live with something substantially more in terms of
delays, or do we want those eliminated. We are focusing our atten-
Page 3 of 16
tion on June, July and August. These are the months of the most
volume, and we are selecting a design hour volume in terms of pick­ing
a number and saying this is what we are going to try and
handle. It is a number that represents a fairly high degree of
traffic and is also fairly representative.
Comment: This is more of an answer for the data that was used for
the traffic flow. It started in 1973 and went through 85. 1983
was deleted because there were problems with the counter. That
gives you the number of years that were used. As far as the
someplace between 60 and 70%
for the variation.
R Lukez: The R square value is very important in any way you
represent this data. I guess also, as a matter of interest, I
uncovered some data yesterday which goes back to 1937 for the
canyon. So there is now complete data available going back to
1937.
Question: (Ronald Laneer) Yes, I realize that your analysis is not
complete but I've looked at Graph No.3, the safety graph, and I
have compared some of the results with an accident analysis that I
did a long time ago in 1971 using the first four years of data that
was put on UDOT's computer and, therefore, was uniform. And there
are some things that I became aware of as a result of that analysis
that agrees with this safety analysis, but there are also things
that seriously conflict with you. The one place we agree is that
the most common kind of accident is running off the road. Some­thing
very illogical is that you are not looking at the relation­ship
of running off the road with seeing the road. The Logan
Canyon Highway is more visible than it has ever been. It has quite
a few yellow center lines, white curb lines and warning signs and
reflectors that have just gone up in the last couple of years.
There has been a great change. We also have very good surface on
now. During most of the 1970s and until two or three years ago the
road was a shambles and I've heard several people say that mainte­nance
was purposely left "undone so the road would get so bad that
the highway department would have to go totally through it.
But the point is that the road ,that you are analyzing now that is
so bright and so visible has not been that way during the period
for most of these accidents that you are analyzing. And I also
agree with your data that show most of the running off the road
accidents are cars going down hill. I think that if you will look
at visibility conditions, what time of day, you'll find that a dis­proportionate
number of those happen at night, many during the
winter time. The road has not been visible. The highway depart­ment
used to begin the Logan Canyon Road at the intersection of 4th
North and Main and during the 40 year period looking at 399 acci­dents
between that intersection and Garden City, 47% of them took
place between Main Street and USU campus. So just to give you an
idea of the rather low magnitude of the accident problem in terms
of accident numbers in Logan Canyon. Rather or not that is exactly
true, I don't know, but it might indicate that if you had $10,000
Page 4 of 16
to spend some turn stoplights at that intersection would do a lot
more good than in Logan Canyon. One thing you don't seem to have
done is to compare accident rates by month or accident numbers by
month. In 1971 I found that at looking at a couple of hundred
accidents that the numbers by month were relatively the same.
There is almost no difference from month to month, even though the
traffic volume for July is more than 12 times the volume for Febru­ary.
Which means at that time you were 12 time safer to be on the
highway in July. You are making assumptions I think that there is
some relationship between safety and the highway and some mathemat­ical
flow principle that you are seeing traffic on the highway
being similar to liquids flowing through a pipe and the idea is
that if you can keep the flow smooth and at an equal rate that will
be safer. The low number of accidents during the peak periods of
summer, I think belies that. And another thing that is not being
done is to select out not the sections only, but the most serious
accidents, the ones that result in fatalities or just injuries or
just those which an ambulance had to be called out for which are
separately accounted for on the UDOT computer, and find what common
factor you can find for those most serious accidents, rather than
just looking at the accidents pretty much quantatively regardless
of where they happen. Certainly, that is important but the seri­ousness
of the accidents is as important as the number of acci­dents,
especially since the majority are running off the road and
colliding with the bank or rocks. It was not mentioned that the
accidents usually result in a little bit of property damage but no
physical injuries .
Don Hueffner: I'm from Rich County and I've got two questions and
I want to ask them both. One is first that about 1/3 of this road
you are talking about is located in Rich County and hearing you
talk about the people who are on this committee I did not hear of
anyone who is representing us. Maybe someone was asked I don't
know about. My next question is that so far most of what has been
said is that Logan Canyon should be used as a destination instead
of transportation. If that is the case, and that'd be fine with me
except that 80% of the people that use it who wouldn't be taken
care of. In other words, would it be possible to funnel that 80%
through Cottonwood Canyon and to Ogden rather than through Logan
Canyon? Is that being considered?
Sheldon Barker: The I.D. Team was not really created to try and
get geographic representation. As I went through the list what we
were trying to do was to get technical specialties, fisheries
biologist, landscape architect. We were not trying to get geograph­ic
representation. That was not the goal. Really, outside of the
Forest Service, the consultants and UDOT the only groups on there
are the environmental groups with their technical input.
Page 5 of 16
D. Hueffner: Can I make a comment? Out situation over there is a
little different than Cache County because so much of our business
relies on what is done over the canyon. And so some of this tech­nical
data and some of the things which we may do will have quite
an impact on these projections. Also, what you decide will have a
great impact upon us.
S. Barker: We certainly want to solicit your input. And in
addition to the meeting we are having here tonight we are in the
process of arranging a meeting in Rich County so you don't have to
travel all the way to Logan so you can as a group be represented.
M. Johnson: I would like to say one other thing and that is that
in completing the environmental analysis at what ever analysis it
is done, the plans that you may have for a convention center or
what ever other development you may have for the Bear Lake area
will be entered into the impacts of the road as well as the needs
for the road. So those concepts are not being brushed aside simply
by some lower percentages for growth in the future. These
percentages for growth, someone said are very low, and that is
true, they are very conservative, but in the current economic
conditions, I think that is very realistic. If conditions change,
then yes, things have to be evaluated again, and if Bear Lake area
starts developing, if Rich County starts developing, then the
projections we have need to be reevaluated. But, growth will not
be discounted in the environmental impact analysis. He had another
question: The question about finding another throughway of routing
the traffic that now occurs in Logan Canyon through some other
route. Would someone with UDOT like to answer that?
Jim Naegle: Any viable alternative would be looked at. The first
observation we have is that it is not one that comes forward as a
benefit at this time. Two decades from now that may not be true,
but at this time we do not see immediately that an alternate route
separate from the canyon is going to be the answer. However, it
will not be discounted, it will be looked at, but at this point our
concentration is on the canyon. We are pretty well going to stay
with the canyon with the money we have.
Question: I get the impression that the major concern between
and safety is the environmental impact on the canyon. My
question is there seems to be a lot of concern about the reliabil­ity
of the data. My question is have their been environmental
studies done on impact of the road as it exists now and how reli­able
is that data? What specific species have been impacted by the
road since I don't know when, and over what time frame, so forth?
M. Johnson: I think you would call that a post audit assessment. I
certainly can't answer that question, whether there has been one
done I think UDOT would have to answer that one.
Page 6 of 16
UDOT: There are a lot of things that can be considered. What has
been done in the past is not the main issue. The thing we are most
concerned about is if there are changes made how will they impact
it? And we want to impact it the least possible to get what is
required or recommended, so we don't spend our time in evaluating
what has happened we are really looking forward and want to make
sure that things are not impacted that shouldn't be impacted. So
we are looking forward and not back at what has been done, only as
it comes into play and what we might be able to learn from it. If
we find something that has been impacted, it will certainly be a
lesson to us as to how to handle the impacts of the future or in
changes in what we might recommend.
M. Johnson: One slight comment on that, and that is that NEPA is
to identify what impacts are going to occur from a project so that
everyone is aware, to provide information and then incorporate
public input to make decisions about what projects should be con­structed
and which ones shouldn't. And as stated at the beginning
our job is to balance the various interests, and certainly there
are a lot of them, especially in this case.
Richard Bean: I am a Logan Business man and my name is Richard
Bean. There are four canyons between here and Yellowstone and it
seems to me that a study of this canyon in relation to the other
three that come to mind would be useful because the end destination
of a lot of vehicles that use this canyon is Jackson or Yellow­stone.
Maybe not in the depth that you are going to study this one
but in the relative traffic flows, you might want to look into
that.
CH2M HILL: So there is no mistake will you identify those canyons?
R. Bean: I drive them every year but I don't remember the names.
Snake River Canyon down from Hobach to Alpine, Canyon out of
Montpelier, and then there is another little canyon by Star Valley.
S. Barker: I appreciate the clarification because I thought you
were talking about alternates to this canyon instead you are
talking about ones that complement this canyon.
R. Bean: A lot of people who use this canyon use those others and
my feeling is that all of those other canyons have better traffic
lows than this one. So I think that should be looked at.
Wendell Anderson: I would like to make a comment along the same
line. From Main and Center in Logan to Sage Junction if you went
over Blacksmith Fork it would be ten miles shorter than it is here,
It would 500 feet lower in elevation than going through Logan
Canyon and there certainly would not be all of the bridges you have
to build. I think that should be considered.
Page 7 of 16
Question: I have a question here and as for improving roads for
safety, that is not a decision you are ready to make at this time.
Other things that you might want to improve the road for, maybe to
save time, how much time is saved? Another thing mentioned was the
where road kills (animal kills) occur, and they occur more at the
top of the mountain and if that area of the road is improved won't
the road kills increase at a much faster rate? You have projec­tions
for many other things
M. Johnson: Let me state from the beginning that never in the
presentation that I made did I mean to infer that improvements
should be justified on the basis of the accidents, because as I
said our analysis is not completed yet. What I said was UDOT's
1982 study indicates certain things and in locating the accidents
that have occurred on the highway, which have nothing to do with
the number crunching, it appears that some sections have more
accidents than others. That is a very obvious conclusion that you
can draw. But we are not trying to justify improvements now or at
any time on the basis of the information on accidents that we have
now. In any environmental analysis that is done something such as
road animal kills would certainly be evaluated. That is a factor
that would certainly need to be considered. So I certainly don't
mean to brush that off, but that is not the point where we are at
now so that will be done before any improvement is constructed or
made.
C. Forsgren: We haven't recommended any conclusions based on
safety. In fact, I don't know that we've really said that the road
needs to be improved. I think what we are saying is that if we
want to do some things then we need to make some changes. But I
don't know that the decision has been made that we want to do those
things. It may be perfectly acceptable as it is. If that is the
case, we will go ahead and fix the bridges.
Question: What is the time savings by making improvements?
C. Forsgren: It depends on what improvements we make, and there is
quite a range. We are not here to tell you what we think we ought
to do. We are here to learn. Do you want something done? Is it
acceptable? We can make certain things to make minor improvements.
We can do more things to make bigger changes.
Question: I was just asking why I might benefit from have it
improved. Will I be able to drive from here to Garden City
quicker, and if so how much quicker will that be?
M. Johnson: That is another thing that will be considered in an
environmental analysis - the time factor, the benefit is an impact
that will be examined.
Page 8 of 16
C. Forsgren: We haven't got that far but I can tell you some
things in general. It is not a proposal, it is just sitting around
wondering what if we did this, what would it mean in terms of level
of service. If we were to go into the canyon right now we are
looking at about 11 foot traffic lanes and foot shoulder areas.
If we were to make those 12 foot lanes and 4 foot shoulder areas
then you reduce the percent of time people would be delayed from 75
to less than 60. That may give you a feel for it.
Question: How long would it take to go Logan to Garden City in an
average day?
C. Forsgren: We haven't figured that yet.
Comment: I've done some calculations and if you could drive to
Logan from Garden City it would take about 55
minutes to get there. If you changed that road to 50 miles an hour
for the whole way, which I think is quite optimistic, it would take
approximately 38 minutes for a 17 minute saving.
Wendell Anderson: I just want to make one suggestion in terms of
terminology here. There has been talk about any change as improve­ment.
You might talk about change rather than improvement, or if
you want another word that is loaded use bulldoze rather than
improvement.
M. Johnson: Improvement is common terminology. I am sorry if that
offended you.
Comment: My name is Ted Seeholzer from Beaver Mountain Ski area and
I'm the last person that wants to see Logan Canyon become a four
lane highway, but we do need some work done on it very soon. There
are some damn serious places in that canyon and I've had family
members who have been injured because of severe turns, and I'm sure
a lot of you have. I have some other concerns other than that and
I'm associated with the visitor business and have been for quite a
few years. Right now the Utah Travel Council, and Bridgerland
Travel Association along with people from Garden City are trying to
really promote the visitor business in Cache County, Logan Canyon,
Garden City, Montpelier, Jackson Hole because Jackson Hole is a
drawing card. Every kid wants to go to Jackson and be a cowboy and
dad wants to go and get drunk. So we are really promoting the
visitor route through this valley. If you think the business
industry isn't viable, it comes to somewhere between $34 million
and $36 million a year in taxes. That is money that you and I
don't pay. And it is damn important to have a good travelable road
that these people can go on. Not at 65 miles per hour but a road
that those that need to get around can get around. 3% truck load in
my estimation is a very heavy truck load. Those people slow up
traffic. All of us are not Sunday drivers. I make 200 trips a year
through that canyon and I'll promise you one thing: You have to go
at 3:00 in the morning, if you don't want to be slowed down you
can't get around traffic. I realize in our projections we have
picked peak holidays, but in my case in the winter, you can pick
Page 9 of 16
President's day and I'll promise you there is bumper to bumper cars
from the mouth of Logan Canyon. And that is a dangerous time of
year, the highways are slick, some people don't use good judgment,
but we have to allow for those types of drivers. You and I can not
drive every car. We can not make John, Jane, and Jim drive with
intelligence. I think that it is up to this organization to use
good judgment in helping those type of drivers navigate
I just want a good road for those who are good drivers, for those
who need to hurry a little bit and its very important that we help
the business industry in this valley.
Question: Who started this whole process? The last I heard UDOT
was basically out of money. Would you explain the procedure?
M. Johnson: I'll certainly let UDOT respond to that. Let me say
that economic assessment of the environmental assessment determines
how much a tradeoff of improvements versus the possible economic
benefits that may occur.
UDOT: The question on economics is certainly an important one.
What this team is going to do is to develop a transportation plan
for the canyon. When that is completed and the environmental
assessments are done and accepted no matter what that plan may be,
then UDOT will look at that and designated it as to what should go
first and what can wait. Certainly parts of it ought to be done as
soon as possible and other parts may be able to wait. But any
action we do take will be part of an overall and published plan so
the public knows where we are going from this point. It may take
one year to complete this plan or some other unspecified time
frame.
Comment: My name is Russ Goodwin and if I could just follow that
thought up somewhat I would propose to UDOT that a much more press­ing
need exists for a good four-lane road into Cache Valley from
the Interstate. Looking at improvements through the Logan Canyon
are a bit premature, in my opinion. We need to be looking at this
type of road into Cache Valley.
UDOT: The purpose of the UDOT is to consider the conditions of all
state routes, and there are plans being made to widen the roadway
from Brigham City to Logan to possibly 4-lanes. There is a study
being completed and some decisions will be made soon.
Question: My name is [no name listed] of Laketown over in Bear Lake
and I don't know if I talk for them but that is who I am here with.
And I'm going to chastise the group because they said they met with
town officials this morning and we didn't know about it and we may
not be very big but we think we are important. The other thing, in
comment, as we look at the environmental study, and I'm sure you do
this, and I'd like the environmentalists to remember that humans
are a part of our environment. I work on an ambulance out of Rich
County and have done for six years, and if you want to have a real
experience, do CPR on somebody on the 4th of July coming through
Page 10 of 16
Logan Canyon. The people we work on are usually from Cache Valley
or down on the Wasatch Front. And it is a tremendous challenge
coming through those bends being very surprised when some tourist
stops when they see the red light down in that lower section and
there is no where to go. So we have to come to a quick stop, begin
doing whatever we were doing again, working on the patients.
Our own families livelihoods rely totally on Cache Valley. If you
look at the economic money, most of us in those communities up and
down Bear Lake make at least one trip a week into Cache Valley, to
grocery shop, to see doctors, to buy tires, buy farm machinery,
implements. Our livelihood relies on Logan Canyon and so most of
us we don't get to drive maybe as much as Mr. Seeholzer, but darn
near as much. And we are interested, we were excited as we read
that there were studies going forward to improve, whether it takes
a little bulldozing or not, to improve that canyon to get us into
the valley easier. We don't want to slow down those that like to
see the canyon, but after you have seen it as much as most of us
do, we don't pay that much attention to it, we want to get here get
our business done and get back home to our families. And that is
important and I hope that the UDOT will come in and solicit our
governments help, and also our people's comments because I think
you'll find the people of Bear Lake love their environment, they
live over there in no man's land because they like to be away from
people and because they enjoy that country surrounding. It is not
a great economic place to be, or looking for a future for your
children, but we are working on that. We do enjoy the environment,
but we need to have some of these facilities for our use as well.
And I would like to see bicycling taken into consideration. I've
about ran over I don't know how many bicyclers coming down the
canyon. They go slow around a bend. They need a lane. I'd like
to put them somewhere over on the hill and give them a nice little
two way path to ride on. That is really becoming a concern of
mine.
That's our feeling and I hope you'll use it.
John Wise from the Herald Journal: I'd like to know why a separate
meeting was held for the local officials prior to this meeting and
no announcement was made available to the local press here.
M. Johnson: I think the comments that were discussed in the
meeting were about the various users of the highway. The people
that use the highway for recreational purposes, the people who use
it for regional transportation coming from Bear Lake Valley to
Logan and one other group. The purpose of it was to try to
establish what their feelings were as to the priorities for the
canyon.
CH2M Hill: That is a loaded question, but let me try and answer
it. Maybe we were somewhat naive, but what we are trying to do is
to get all the people we can. There was no intent to limit the
people. The point is that we are in no way trying to limit the
input. We are trying to get as much input as we can. In some ways
Page 11 of 16
it was easier to attend a meeting at 4:00, there was a little
different type of people there. We are going to have a whole
series of public meetings. Our intent was never to exclude anybody
and if the media would like to be invited, that is fine too. Call
it oversight, whatever, we were trying to get all the input we can.
M. Johnson: One thing I might also add is that at the meeting this
afternoon there were a great variety of opinions expressed just as
there have been tonight. It was not one sided towards any interest
group.
Question: I would just like to know how much money UDOT is paying
CH2M Hill to do this study. How much is it costing and how many
manhours or people hours does that involve?
UDOT: It is correct that UDOT did hire a consultant to take an
objective look at the study and we are paying them money to do it.
They don't work for free. The contract amount is in the range of
$500,000.00. It is by no means inexpensive.
Question: Would that be for this year?
UDOT: That covers the term of the study and we mentioned that the
study should be completed in June approximately of next year.
Question: How long has the study been going on?
UDOT: We initiated this about June of 1986. So it will be approx­imately
one year. As far as manpower estimates, they have been
completed but I can't quote what they are. They were submitted by
the consultant.
R. Laneer: I would just like to suggest that one of the groups
that you consult that doesn't often get consulted be the highway
patrol. I've talked to some of them and they have their own points
off view on increasing speeds on Logan Canyon and other highways.
And what they have told me is that even though they are a part of
state government, they don't normally get consulted. So I think
the local highway patrolmen who have had experience in Logan Canyon
would be valuable.
Comments: My name is Lewis Polk from Montpelier which, of course,
is on the other side of the state boundary. But we in Idaho also
have a great investment in the 89 project. It is my opinion and it
has been for a number of years that Highway 89 needs a tremendous
amount of work. It is a safety problem. I'm in the type of busi­ness
where I get a report card on that highway almost every day.
Some of the travelling people coming through from back east or
wherever as they stop in Montpelier (and I am in the hotel busi­ness,
I have two properties in Montpelier), the kind of report
stating, "My Hell! Where are the guard rails?" or "My Hell!, Where
is the asphalt?" or any number of combinations and some worse than
what I just used. It is my opinion that something really does need
to be done with Highway 89. It is in a serious condition. And I'm
Page 12 of 16
not saying that Idaho is in great shape either. I'm here just to
see what happens here because I would like to go to Idaho and say
"Hey, we have a problem too." Wyoming has taken the challenge and
Wyoming has improved their highway and it is already proved to be a
significant savings factor in human life in the work that Wyoming
has complete.
I also served for the last three years in the Idaho Travel Council
so I have a little bit of travel background in me, about 15 years
in the lodging business. I just completed a year as the Chairman
of the Idaho Travel Council. Travel figures and travel peaks are
not declining, they are increasing. So the caps that CH2M Hill has
come up with I think are conservative. 2% to me seems to be a
little conservative. I hope it is conservative. In these states
we seem to be economically impacted and travel seems to be one of
our saving factors. I would like to see us begin to invest in our
futures, both Utah and Idaho and develop these highways and improve
these highways, make them safer, maintain the traffic patterns that
we have and do a better job. Logan Canyon is certainly nothing to
be ashamed of. It is. a beautiful canyon. I don't want anything to
happen to Logan Canyon simply because the comments about the canyon
are how wonderful and how marvelous and how unique! It does have
environmental impact on anybody who comes through it. Everyone
enjoys it. But nobody enjoys it when their family and friends are
being marred or are injured or even killed in those canyons. So
that's my interest in coming to this meeting and I wanted to let -::1
you know I am out of state, but we do share an economic bond here
with Highway 89 and we need to do something desperately with it.
One other comment, in the hotel business in Montpelier, questions
have come up to how this study was done and what is being asked.
And I remember just getting into the hotel business with my father
years and years ago and CH2M Hill was around then and doing studies
at that point in time, and about two years ago I had a chance to
sit in on a review of a study program with power utility company
and heard some of the praises for CH2M Hill. They are a reputable
company and the state did hire someone with the proper background
to come in and make an objective analysis of this kind of a
project.
The other part of this is that the level of service and capacity
have been talked about a little bit. The level of service is not
up to par and the capacity is not either. If it is now it
certainly can't be for future growth of what I think Bear Lake is
going to need, what Jackson Hole and Yellowstone, and what Utah is
going to need. Utah has more national parks than any other state,
I believe. You are going to have more travel, you are going to
have more traffic. Prepare yourselves so it is not a problem for
you. Get ready for it now, if it is not already a start of being
too late.
Question: (Comments regarding Logan Canyon becoming too much like
Ogden Canyon, Provo Canyon and Weber Canyon)
Page 13 of 16
Question: I've heard a lot of talk about the actual traffic flow,
I guess my question is to the people of UDOT, and that is why isn't
there more encouragement of the use of pullovers for slow moving
vehicles. I'm thinking particularly of some canyons that are a lot
like Logan Canyon in Idaho in Payette Canyon and the Salmon River
Canyon where there are a lot of pullovers like there are here but a
quarter of a mile before the pullover it says "Please use slow
moving vehicle pullover coming up." Every time I'm in a traffic
jam up there I always wonder why Utah doesn't do that. I know they
probably don't have a law to make it illegal to stack up cars like
a lot of western states do, but I think a lot more could be done in
the use of pullovers. I think they unjam traffic a lot better even
than a third lane does. So I would like to ask them why there
isn't more encouragement for the use of that kind of thing.
S. Nuffer: I think what you have identified is one of the alter­natives
that we will be looking at.
Question: It seems less expensive than other alternatives.
S. Nuffer: We've had experience with some of these kinds of things
with mixed results. This would need to be coupled with
enforcement.
Question: There are a lot of timid drivers who won't just pull off
into one when they see one. They need the warning that it is
coming up.
M. Johnson: I heard an interesting comment in regard to the
proposal this afternoon. This was also raised at the earlier
meeting that was referred to by the press. One problem is that if
people pullout, they have a problem getting back into the line of
traffic. Now I'm not saying that is insurmountable, but all of us
if we are driving in a canyon, for Pete's Sake let someone back in
if they have pulled out to let traffic move on.
Comment: Usually they are quite clumped up. I don't think getting
back into the traffic is a problem.
M. Johnson: Any other ideas as far as alternatives that might be
considered? As we have said we have no preconceived ideas of what
should be done in Logan Canyon. We have identified what we think
are problems, but as far solving those problems, that remains open
to the next task of study.
R. Laneer: Just a point of view, accidents and safety on the
highway shouldn't be looked at as strictly an engineering problem.
It is a behavioral problem. Accidents take place because people
respond in certain ways to the hazards or conditions of the road,
especially regarding such things as pullouts and passing lanes and
so on. And I don't think engineers are competent to predict the
Page 14 of 16
behavior of people. I don't see you strengthening your team by
having anybody on it who is competent on how people behave on the
road. And I think engineering solutions and problems of that kind
are never going to get down to be bottom of it.
M. Johnson: Thank you. That is an interesting point. Are you
looking for a job?
Question: I would like to know how many highway projects CH2M Hill
has worked on.
CH2M Hill: They are so numerous I could stay here all night and
flick them off.
M. Johnson: I know we are presently working on one in the Boise
office and just completing the Broadway-Chinden connector which
connects the freeway into downtown Boise - 40 to 50 million dollar
project. Interestingly, the project engineer on that project
previously completed a major viaduct system in the San Francisco
Bay area and this was a project that involved not the same types of
environment we are dealing with here, but a very sensitive urban
environment. Consideration for impact and mitigation measures had
to be incorporated into the project, so the company has had a great
deal of experience dealing with sensitive highway projects.
R. Lukez: It might be better to explain how many projects you have
worked on similar to Logan Canyon.
(At this point a brochure was presented to Rudy Lukez.)
R. Lukez: I'd just like to add a couple of things. A couple of
times during the discussion the term environmental analysis has
been used. For those of you who aren't familiar with the NEPA
process from 1970, that decision hasn't been made yet to do an
environmental assessment or an environmental analysis. There may
even be an environmental impact statement done later on down the
road. As an ID team that still has to be decided upon - exactly
what the final is going to be. I personally prefer the term
environmental study because it doesn't have any technical
connection to it yet.
The other thing is a couple of people mentioned during this time
they are concerned about people getting killed on the highway and
I'm sure everybody will agree that we don't want to see anybody get
killed, but we have had very few people get killed over the highway
the past number of years and it turns out that one of the most
recent deaths on the highway now is being arraigned in one of the
local courts as a murder charge.
Question: How many deaths have occurred in Logan Canyon?
Page 15 of 16
R. Lukez: I think the number of deaths is very low, perhaps 5 or
6. An interesting comparison was done during the 1979 activities
of safety. It showed that the most dangerous part of the highway
was the section that was improved up to Right Hand Fork, by a
considerable amount, and that afterwards, the highway was much
safer and a lot of the highway patrolmen that were interviewed
during those studies said that it was primarily because people are
a little more careful when they know there is an unimproved highway
ahead and that they won't speed up and pass people at those times.
M. Johnson: Since we haven't completed the analysis I don't think
we should draw any conclusions, second, I think it is very
important that we provide you with the findings that we ultimately
come up with. We do have a mailing list for the project and we
will be sending out the information to the people on our mailing
list.
I would like to mention our other public involvement attempts that
you can use to get information or make comments on the project.
Valley Engineering is our subcontractor and we try to make informa­tion
available to Gale Larson of Valley Engineering. We have
produced fact sheets, summaries of the project and given them to
Valley Engineering, libraries, UDOT and CH2M Hill. We are also
trying to find a location to spread the material in Rich County
area. Any of you who have stated that you are from that area
tonight you might just let me know what would be a good location to
place information about the project in the future.
I want to say we are going to have additional meetings; we have
tentatively talked about a meeting in the Rich County area. I
think there have been some comments made tonight that will make us
further evaluate that possibility. The next step that we have is
development of alternatives. And I assure that those alternatives
will be very wide in scope. I mean we are not going to come up
with just ideas for bulldozing Highway 89 through Logan Canyon.
Most of all, I want to say that all of your input is appreciated. I
don't care if you are arguing with our figures or not. As has been
stated in a local newspaper it is the questions that keeps us
honest and I can assure that we at CH2M Hill are very concerned
about our integrity and our credibility as our information goes.
If you have a question, please let us know.
Jim Naegle: Let me make one comment. UDOT went through an exten­sive
process in selecting a consultant and we are very satisfied
with the competency of CH2M HIll.
Meeting was adjourned.
Page 16 of 16

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LOGAN CANYON ENVIRONMENTAL STUDY
PUBLIC MEETING
LOGAN, UTAH
September 23, 1986
COMMENTS FOLLOWING CH2M HILL PRESENTATION:
Question: I just wanted to ask why is this study limited to that
segment you showed.
Margaret Johnson: That was defined by the UDOT. Stan, would you
like to elaborate on that?
S. Nuffer: That is correct, we are referring to the section from
Right Fork on over the hill to Garden City, and for a basis of com­parison,
the lower level of the canyon as well for certain types of
analysis as to what were the effects of some of the improvements.
Does that answer your question?
Question: Is it because this portion seems to have the greatest
concentration of problems?
S. Nuffer: As Commissioner Weston explained, there are certain
things that need to be done in that canyon, such as the bridge
replacement, and there are some identified areas that could be
improved so it was necessary to conduct an environmental study. So
the opinion was tp look at the canyon as a whole so we can address
the problem once and for all so these things can be done as the
arise.
S. Barker: The portion of the canyon below Right Hand Fork has
already had improvement projects. So we wanted to focus our atten­.
tion on the other area that has not been improved.
Question: I was interested in your overlays. Do you also have
overlays of the traffic patterns for the last 20 years?
S. Nuffer: We don't have an overlay for that.
Question: How does that compare with your projected trend? What
is the trend for the last 20 years? Is there an upward trend in
the same fashion?
S. Nuffer: The trend that we have projected there reflects about a
2% annual growth rate. This is a very conservative growth rate.
Much less than has been used in the past.
Rudy Lukez: I just wanted to point out a couple of things I men­tioned
in a discussion concerning this meeting, and also why the
public may wish to disregard this information. One thing in par­ticular
is the safety data. Last week we had a chance to look at
the data and the conservationists reviewed it and we came up with
some serious flaws in it. At that time we asked that the safety
data not be discussed at this meeting. That was essentially going
to be our agreement for tonight, that the safety data that had been
collected and analyzed to this point was not correct. And so it
would not be proper at this point for anybody to make any conclu­sions
or to draw any conclusions from that safety data until it is
better analyzed and better reviewed.
C. Forsgren: What Rudy is saying is basically correct. We have
not completed the analysis. We are looking at the accidents. We
are looking at the locations on the road that accidents may occur
in clusters, but we have not gotten to the point where we can draw
conclusions. The study done by UDOT several years ago identified
places in the canyon where we might look to do some improvements.
Their objective was different than ours. We are looking at a
different type of situation from a different perspective. So the
message we wanted to convey tonight relative to safety is that
these are the things that we are looking at.
Question: Based on what? You just said you don't have data to
look at and that is the third time you've said it.
C. Forsgren: All we are prepared to say is that at some places in
the road there have been more accidents in the past six years than
in other places. Whether that is significant or not, we haven't
determined. That is all we can say at this point. We have some
data that we had reason to believe was reliable, but in looking at
it closer, we now question it. The only thing we are saying now is
that we are looking at these things and when we are satisfied that
our conclusions are correct, then we will come out and say these
are our conclusions. And until we can say that, we are not prepared
to do so. That is, in essence, what we hope to convey tonight.
The only thing I can say for certain, and it is just simply
there are places where there have been more accidents. Whether
that means anything, we don't know. We can't say that and we are
not going to. And I appreciate Rudy bringing this up, because we
do not want to convey the wrong impressions.
R. Lukez: It might be worthwhile to mention that when accidents
are counted it includes everything from someone getting killed on
the one extreme to somebody running off the ditch because of
carelessness or going to fast around a corner on an icy road in the
middle of a blizzard. So you do get quite a range of accidents so
there is a corresponding severity index for that.
C. Forsgren: I apologize if we have created some confusion on that
and if you want to jump on somebody, you can jump on me. At this
point all we want to tell you is what we are doing and not what we
have concluded, because we have really not concluded anything.
Page 2 of 16
R Lukez: The only thing we wanted to make sure was pointed out
tonight was that the data which has been used to this point to make
projections out to the year 2010 is not good data, that the data is
very scattered and there are a lot of conclusions you could draw
from it. Using straight linear techniques such as they
used tonight you are able to come up with the corresponding numbers
that they have and from there they are able to draw upon that data
and come up with various conclusions for the current levels of
service that are defined by the government from A to F.
C. Forsgren: We might point out that the numbers we are talking
about are summer numbers.
R. Lukez: Yes, that is correct. It is important to realize that
we are talking about summer numbers used in traffic flows and
projections for the future - that is through the three summer
months and that is heavily weighted by the data from the 4th of
July Weekend, the 24th of July Weekend and by Labor Day and from
Memorial Day and several other scattered weekends. So you are
looking at trends that are very representative of major
recreational highways where people are going to recreate for the
weekend. They are going to another recreational destination and
because of the way the numbers are sort of skewed, especially along
those holiday weekends, those peak periods when everybody in the
world is travelling, it helps to determine the various design
hourly volume rates and then you can get those levels of services
that some are very scary, no doubt, in the 'E' range. In this
case, I believe we are shooting for an ideal level of "C" service
when doing the mathematical analysis.
So I think those are things to really keep in mind - the safety
data is not complete and no conclusions should be drawn from it at
all, and the 1.9% figure is all based on statistical data which is
not very good data. When you start building statistical correla­tions
you don't come out very well. Also, the 1.9% figure is a very
low number. I keep hearing from UDOT time and time again, "Gee, we
like to see 4% or 6% as a growth rate in order to design new high­ways."
So that's another thing to keep in mind, it is very low,
and depending upon how you interpret those numbers you can come to
many different conclusions, and when you are talking about levels
of service and you are hearing "D" or "E" level of service keep in
mind that it is based on busy summer weekends, and only during
those summer weekends.
C. Forsgren: One thing that hasn't been decided yet is the level
of service that we want to achieve. That is one of the purposes of
these meetings, is to try and establish what is it we want. Do we
want "A" or are we willing to live with "B" or "D" or something in
between. This may be a little confusing to you, but one of the
objectives is to find out what are we going to live with up there,
or what do we want to have in the way of services. - Is it alright
the way it is, can we live with the delays which we are experienc­ing,
or can we live with something substantially more in terms of
delays, or do we want those eliminated. We are focusing our atten-
Page 3 of 16
tion on June, July and August. These are the months of the most
volume, and we are selecting a design hour volume in terms of pick­ing
a number and saying this is what we are going to try and
handle. It is a number that represents a fairly high degree of
traffic and is also fairly representative.
Comment: This is more of an answer for the data that was used for
the traffic flow. It started in 1973 and went through 85. 1983
was deleted because there were problems with the counter. That
gives you the number of years that were used. As far as the
someplace between 60 and 70%
for the variation.
R Lukez: The R square value is very important in any way you
represent this data. I guess also, as a matter of interest, I
uncovered some data yesterday which goes back to 1937 for the
canyon. So there is now complete data available going back to
1937.
Question: (Ronald Laneer) Yes, I realize that your analysis is not
complete but I've looked at Graph No.3, the safety graph, and I
have compared some of the results with an accident analysis that I
did a long time ago in 1971 using the first four years of data that
was put on UDOT's computer and, therefore, was uniform. And there
are some things that I became aware of as a result of that analysis
that agrees with this safety analysis, but there are also things
that seriously conflict with you. The one place we agree is that
the most common kind of accident is running off the road. Some­thing
very illogical is that you are not looking at the relation­ship
of running off the road with seeing the road. The Logan
Canyon Highway is more visible than it has ever been. It has quite
a few yellow center lines, white curb lines and warning signs and
reflectors that have just gone up in the last couple of years.
There has been a great change. We also have very good surface on
now. During most of the 1970s and until two or three years ago the
road was a shambles and I've heard several people say that mainte­nance
was purposely left "undone so the road would get so bad that
the highway department would have to go totally through it.
But the point is that the road ,that you are analyzing now that is
so bright and so visible has not been that way during the period
for most of these accidents that you are analyzing. And I also
agree with your data that show most of the running off the road
accidents are cars going down hill. I think that if you will look
at visibility conditions, what time of day, you'll find that a dis­proportionate
number of those happen at night, many during the
winter time. The road has not been visible. The highway depart­ment
used to begin the Logan Canyon Road at the intersection of 4th
North and Main and during the 40 year period looking at 399 acci­dents
between that intersection and Garden City, 47% of them took
place between Main Street and USU campus. So just to give you an
idea of the rather low magnitude of the accident problem in terms
of accident numbers in Logan Canyon. Rather or not that is exactly
true, I don't know, but it might indicate that if you had $10,000
Page 4 of 16
to spend some turn stoplights at that intersection would do a lot
more good than in Logan Canyon. One thing you don't seem to have
done is to compare accident rates by month or accident numbers by
month. In 1971 I found that at looking at a couple of hundred
accidents that the numbers by month were relatively the same.
There is almost no difference from month to month, even though the
traffic volume for July is more than 12 times the volume for Febru­ary.
Which means at that time you were 12 time safer to be on the
highway in July. You are making assumptions I think that there is
some relationship between safety and the highway and some mathemat­ical
flow principle that you are seeing traffic on the highway
being similar to liquids flowing through a pipe and the idea is
that if you can keep the flow smooth and at an equal rate that will
be safer. The low number of accidents during the peak periods of
summer, I think belies that. And another thing that is not being
done is to select out not the sections only, but the most serious
accidents, the ones that result in fatalities or just injuries or
just those which an ambulance had to be called out for which are
separately accounted for on the UDOT computer, and find what common
factor you can find for those most serious accidents, rather than
just looking at the accidents pretty much quantatively regardless
of where they happen. Certainly, that is important but the seri­ousness
of the accidents is as important as the number of acci­dents,
especially since the majority are running off the road and
colliding with the bank or rocks. It was not mentioned that the
accidents usually result in a little bit of property damage but no
physical injuries .
Don Hueffner: I'm from Rich County and I've got two questions and
I want to ask them both. One is first that about 1/3 of this road
you are talking about is located in Rich County and hearing you
talk about the people who are on this committee I did not hear of
anyone who is representing us. Maybe someone was asked I don't
know about. My next question is that so far most of what has been
said is that Logan Canyon should be used as a destination instead
of transportation. If that is the case, and that'd be fine with me
except that 80% of the people that use it who wouldn't be taken
care of. In other words, would it be possible to funnel that 80%
through Cottonwood Canyon and to Ogden rather than through Logan
Canyon? Is that being considered?
Sheldon Barker: The I.D. Team was not really created to try and
get geographic representation. As I went through the list what we
were trying to do was to get technical specialties, fisheries
biologist, landscape architect. We were not trying to get geograph­ic
representation. That was not the goal. Really, outside of the
Forest Service, the consultants and UDOT the only groups on there
are the environmental groups with their technical input.
Page 5 of 16
D. Hueffner: Can I make a comment? Out situation over there is a
little different than Cache County because so much of our business
relies on what is done over the canyon. And so some of this tech­nical
data and some of the things which we may do will have quite
an impact on these projections. Also, what you decide will have a
great impact upon us.
S. Barker: We certainly want to solicit your input. And in
addition to the meeting we are having here tonight we are in the
process of arranging a meeting in Rich County so you don't have to
travel all the way to Logan so you can as a group be represented.
M. Johnson: I would like to say one other thing and that is that
in completing the environmental analysis at what ever analysis it
is done, the plans that you may have for a convention center or
what ever other development you may have for the Bear Lake area
will be entered into the impacts of the road as well as the needs
for the road. So those concepts are not being brushed aside simply
by some lower percentages for growth in the future. These
percentages for growth, someone said are very low, and that is
true, they are very conservative, but in the current economic
conditions, I think that is very realistic. If conditions change,
then yes, things have to be evaluated again, and if Bear Lake area
starts developing, if Rich County starts developing, then the
projections we have need to be reevaluated. But, growth will not
be discounted in the environmental impact analysis. He had another
question: The question about finding another throughway of routing
the traffic that now occurs in Logan Canyon through some other
route. Would someone with UDOT like to answer that?
Jim Naegle: Any viable alternative would be looked at. The first
observation we have is that it is not one that comes forward as a
benefit at this time. Two decades from now that may not be true,
but at this time we do not see immediately that an alternate route
separate from the canyon is going to be the answer. However, it
will not be discounted, it will be looked at, but at this point our
concentration is on the canyon. We are pretty well going to stay
with the canyon with the money we have.
Question: I get the impression that the major concern between
and safety is the environmental impact on the canyon. My
question is there seems to be a lot of concern about the reliabil­ity
of the data. My question is have their been environmental
studies done on impact of the road as it exists now and how reli­able
is that data? What specific species have been impacted by the
road since I don't know when, and over what time frame, so forth?
M. Johnson: I think you would call that a post audit assessment. I
certainly can't answer that question, whether there has been one
done I think UDOT would have to answer that one.
Page 6 of 16
UDOT: There are a lot of things that can be considered. What has
been done in the past is not the main issue. The thing we are most
concerned about is if there are changes made how will they impact
it? And we want to impact it the least possible to get what is
required or recommended, so we don't spend our time in evaluating
what has happened we are really looking forward and want to make
sure that things are not impacted that shouldn't be impacted. So
we are looking forward and not back at what has been done, only as
it comes into play and what we might be able to learn from it. If
we find something that has been impacted, it will certainly be a
lesson to us as to how to handle the impacts of the future or in
changes in what we might recommend.
M. Johnson: One slight comment on that, and that is that NEPA is
to identify what impacts are going to occur from a project so that
everyone is aware, to provide information and then incorporate
public input to make decisions about what projects should be con­structed
and which ones shouldn't. And as stated at the beginning
our job is to balance the various interests, and certainly there
are a lot of them, especially in this case.
Richard Bean: I am a Logan Business man and my name is Richard
Bean. There are four canyons between here and Yellowstone and it
seems to me that a study of this canyon in relation to the other
three that come to mind would be useful because the end destination
of a lot of vehicles that use this canyon is Jackson or Yellow­stone.
Maybe not in the depth that you are going to study this one
but in the relative traffic flows, you might want to look into
that.
CH2M HILL: So there is no mistake will you identify those canyons?
R. Bean: I drive them every year but I don't remember the names.
Snake River Canyon down from Hobach to Alpine, Canyon out of
Montpelier, and then there is another little canyon by Star Valley.
S. Barker: I appreciate the clarification because I thought you
were talking about alternates to this canyon instead you are
talking about ones that complement this canyon.
R. Bean: A lot of people who use this canyon use those others and
my feeling is that all of those other canyons have better traffic
lows than this one. So I think that should be looked at.
Wendell Anderson: I would like to make a comment along the same
line. From Main and Center in Logan to Sage Junction if you went
over Blacksmith Fork it would be ten miles shorter than it is here,
It would 500 feet lower in elevation than going through Logan
Canyon and there certainly would not be all of the bridges you have
to build. I think that should be considered.
Page 7 of 16
Question: I have a question here and as for improving roads for
safety, that is not a decision you are ready to make at this time.
Other things that you might want to improve the road for, maybe to
save time, how much time is saved? Another thing mentioned was the
where road kills (animal kills) occur, and they occur more at the
top of the mountain and if that area of the road is improved won't
the road kills increase at a much faster rate? You have projec­tions
for many other things
M. Johnson: Let me state from the beginning that never in the
presentation that I made did I mean to infer that improvements
should be justified on the basis of the accidents, because as I
said our analysis is not completed yet. What I said was UDOT's
1982 study indicates certain things and in locating the accidents
that have occurred on the highway, which have nothing to do with
the number crunching, it appears that some sections have more
accidents than others. That is a very obvious conclusion that you
can draw. But we are not trying to justify improvements now or at
any time on the basis of the information on accidents that we have
now. In any environmental analysis that is done something such as
road animal kills would certainly be evaluated. That is a factor
that would certainly need to be considered. So I certainly don't
mean to brush that off, but that is not the point where we are at
now so that will be done before any improvement is constructed or
made.
C. Forsgren: We haven't recommended any conclusions based on
safety. In fact, I don't know that we've really said that the road
needs to be improved. I think what we are saying is that if we
want to do some things then we need to make some changes. But I
don't know that the decision has been made that we want to do those
things. It may be perfectly acceptable as it is. If that is the
case, we will go ahead and fix the bridges.
Question: What is the time savings by making improvements?
C. Forsgren: It depends on what improvements we make, and there is
quite a range. We are not here to tell you what we think we ought
to do. We are here to learn. Do you want something done? Is it
acceptable? We can make certain things to make minor improvements.
We can do more things to make bigger changes.
Question: I was just asking why I might benefit from have it
improved. Will I be able to drive from here to Garden City
quicker, and if so how much quicker will that be?
M. Johnson: That is another thing that will be considered in an
environmental analysis - the time factor, the benefit is an impact
that will be examined.
Page 8 of 16
C. Forsgren: We haven't got that far but I can tell you some
things in general. It is not a proposal, it is just sitting around
wondering what if we did this, what would it mean in terms of level
of service. If we were to go into the canyon right now we are
looking at about 11 foot traffic lanes and foot shoulder areas.
If we were to make those 12 foot lanes and 4 foot shoulder areas
then you reduce the percent of time people would be delayed from 75
to less than 60. That may give you a feel for it.
Question: How long would it take to go Logan to Garden City in an
average day?
C. Forsgren: We haven't figured that yet.
Comment: I've done some calculations and if you could drive to
Logan from Garden City it would take about 55
minutes to get there. If you changed that road to 50 miles an hour
for the whole way, which I think is quite optimistic, it would take
approximately 38 minutes for a 17 minute saving.
Wendell Anderson: I just want to make one suggestion in terms of
terminology here. There has been talk about any change as improve­ment.
You might talk about change rather than improvement, or if
you want another word that is loaded use bulldoze rather than
improvement.
M. Johnson: Improvement is common terminology. I am sorry if that
offended you.
Comment: My name is Ted Seeholzer from Beaver Mountain Ski area and
I'm the last person that wants to see Logan Canyon become a four
lane highway, but we do need some work done on it very soon. There
are some damn serious places in that canyon and I've had family
members who have been injured because of severe turns, and I'm sure
a lot of you have. I have some other concerns other than that and
I'm associated with the visitor business and have been for quite a
few years. Right now the Utah Travel Council, and Bridgerland
Travel Association along with people from Garden City are trying to
really promote the visitor business in Cache County, Logan Canyon,
Garden City, Montpelier, Jackson Hole because Jackson Hole is a
drawing card. Every kid wants to go to Jackson and be a cowboy and
dad wants to go and get drunk. So we are really promoting the
visitor route through this valley. If you think the business
industry isn't viable, it comes to somewhere between $34 million
and $36 million a year in taxes. That is money that you and I
don't pay. And it is damn important to have a good travelable road
that these people can go on. Not at 65 miles per hour but a road
that those that need to get around can get around. 3% truck load in
my estimation is a very heavy truck load. Those people slow up
traffic. All of us are not Sunday drivers. I make 200 trips a year
through that canyon and I'll promise you one thing: You have to go
at 3:00 in the morning, if you don't want to be slowed down you
can't get around traffic. I realize in our projections we have
picked peak holidays, but in my case in the winter, you can pick
Page 9 of 16
President's day and I'll promise you there is bumper to bumper cars
from the mouth of Logan Canyon. And that is a dangerous time of
year, the highways are slick, some people don't use good judgment,
but we have to allow for those types of drivers. You and I can not
drive every car. We can not make John, Jane, and Jim drive with
intelligence. I think that it is up to this organization to use
good judgment in helping those type of drivers navigate
I just want a good road for those who are good drivers, for those
who need to hurry a little bit and its very important that we help
the business industry in this valley.
Question: Who started this whole process? The last I heard UDOT
was basically out of money. Would you explain the procedure?
M. Johnson: I'll certainly let UDOT respond to that. Let me say
that economic assessment of the environmental assessment determines
how much a tradeoff of improvements versus the possible economic
benefits that may occur.
UDOT: The question on economics is certainly an important one.
What this team is going to do is to develop a transportation plan
for the canyon. When that is completed and the environmental
assessments are done and accepted no matter what that plan may be,
then UDOT will look at that and designated it as to what should go
first and what can wait. Certainly parts of it ought to be done as
soon as possible and other parts may be able to wait. But any
action we do take will be part of an overall and published plan so
the public knows where we are going from this point. It may take
one year to complete this plan or some other unspecified time
frame.
Comment: My name is Russ Goodwin and if I could just follow that
thought up somewhat I would propose to UDOT that a much more press­ing
need exists for a good four-lane road into Cache Valley from
the Interstate. Looking at improvements through the Logan Canyon
are a bit premature, in my opinion. We need to be looking at this
type of road into Cache Valley.
UDOT: The purpose of the UDOT is to consider the conditions of all
state routes, and there are plans being made to widen the roadway
from Brigham City to Logan to possibly 4-lanes. There is a study
being completed and some decisions will be made soon.
Question: My name is [no name listed] of Laketown over in Bear Lake
and I don't know if I talk for them but that is who I am here with.
And I'm going to chastise the group because they said they met with
town officials this morning and we didn't know about it and we may
not be very big but we think we are important. The other thing, in
comment, as we look at the environmental study, and I'm sure you do
this, and I'd like the environmentalists to remember that humans
are a part of our environment. I work on an ambulance out of Rich
County and have done for six years, and if you want to have a real
experience, do CPR on somebody on the 4th of July coming through
Page 10 of 16
Logan Canyon. The people we work on are usually from Cache Valley
or down on the Wasatch Front. And it is a tremendous challenge
coming through those bends being very surprised when some tourist
stops when they see the red light down in that lower section and
there is no where to go. So we have to come to a quick stop, begin
doing whatever we were doing again, working on the patients.
Our own families livelihoods rely totally on Cache Valley. If you
look at the economic money, most of us in those communities up and
down Bear Lake make at least one trip a week into Cache Valley, to
grocery shop, to see doctors, to buy tires, buy farm machinery,
implements. Our livelihood relies on Logan Canyon and so most of
us we don't get to drive maybe as much as Mr. Seeholzer, but darn
near as much. And we are interested, we were excited as we read
that there were studies going forward to improve, whether it takes
a little bulldozing or not, to improve that canyon to get us into
the valley easier. We don't want to slow down those that like to
see the canyon, but after you have seen it as much as most of us
do, we don't pay that much attention to it, we want to get here get
our business done and get back home to our families. And that is
important and I hope that the UDOT will come in and solicit our
governments help, and also our people's comments because I think
you'll find the people of Bear Lake love their environment, they
live over there in no man's land because they like to be away from
people and because they enjoy that country surrounding. It is not
a great economic place to be, or looking for a future for your
children, but we are working on that. We do enjoy the environment,
but we need to have some of these facilities for our use as well.
And I would like to see bicycling taken into consideration. I've
about ran over I don't know how many bicyclers coming down the
canyon. They go slow around a bend. They need a lane. I'd like
to put them somewhere over on the hill and give them a nice little
two way path to ride on. That is really becoming a concern of
mine.
That's our feeling and I hope you'll use it.
John Wise from the Herald Journal: I'd like to know why a separate
meeting was held for the local officials prior to this meeting and
no announcement was made available to the local press here.
M. Johnson: I think the comments that were discussed in the
meeting were about the various users of the highway. The people
that use the highway for recreational purposes, the people who use
it for regional transportation coming from Bear Lake Valley to
Logan and one other group. The purpose of it was to try to
establish what their feelings were as to the priorities for the
canyon.
CH2M Hill: That is a loaded question, but let me try and answer
it. Maybe we were somewhat naive, but what we are trying to do is
to get all the people we can. There was no intent to limit the
people. The point is that we are in no way trying to limit the
input. We are trying to get as much input as we can. In some ways
Page 11 of 16
it was easier to attend a meeting at 4:00, there was a little
different type of people there. We are going to have a whole
series of public meetings. Our intent was never to exclude anybody
and if the media would like to be invited, that is fine too. Call
it oversight, whatever, we were trying to get all the input we can.
M. Johnson: One thing I might also add is that at the meeting this
afternoon there were a great variety of opinions expressed just as
there have been tonight. It was not one sided towards any interest
group.
Question: I would just like to know how much money UDOT is paying
CH2M Hill to do this study. How much is it costing and how many
manhours or people hours does that involve?
UDOT: It is correct that UDOT did hire a consultant to take an
objective look at the study and we are paying them money to do it.
They don't work for free. The contract amount is in the range of
$500,000.00. It is by no means inexpensive.
Question: Would that be for this year?
UDOT: That covers the term of the study and we mentioned that the
study should be completed in June approximately of next year.
Question: How long has the study been going on?
UDOT: We initiated this about June of 1986. So it will be approx­imately
one year. As far as manpower estimates, they have been
completed but I can't quote what they are. They were submitted by
the consultant.
R. Laneer: I would just like to suggest that one of the groups
that you consult that doesn't often get consulted be the highway
patrol. I've talked to some of them and they have their own points
off view on increasing speeds on Logan Canyon and other highways.
And what they have told me is that even though they are a part of
state government, they don't normally get consulted. So I think
the local highway patrolmen who have had experience in Logan Canyon
would be valuable.
Comments: My name is Lewis Polk from Montpelier which, of course,
is on the other side of the state boundary. But we in Idaho also
have a great investment in the 89 project. It is my opinion and it
has been for a number of years that Highway 89 needs a tremendous
amount of work. It is a safety problem. I'm in the type of busi­ness
where I get a report card on that highway almost every day.
Some of the travelling people coming through from back east or
wherever as they stop in Montpelier (and I am in the hotel busi­ness,
I have two properties in Montpelier), the kind of report
stating, "My Hell! Where are the guard rails?" or "My Hell!, Where
is the asphalt?" or any number of combinations and some worse than
what I just used. It is my opinion that something really does need
to be done with Highway 89. It is in a serious condition. And I'm
Page 12 of 16
not saying that Idaho is in great shape either. I'm here just to
see what happens here because I would like to go to Idaho and say
"Hey, we have a problem too." Wyoming has taken the challenge and
Wyoming has improved their highway and it is already proved to be a
significant savings factor in human life in the work that Wyoming
has complete.
I also served for the last three years in the Idaho Travel Council
so I have a little bit of travel background in me, about 15 years
in the lodging business. I just completed a year as the Chairman
of the Idaho Travel Council. Travel figures and travel peaks are
not declining, they are increasing. So the caps that CH2M Hill has
come up with I think are conservative. 2% to me seems to be a
little conservative. I hope it is conservative. In these states
we seem to be economically impacted and travel seems to be one of
our saving factors. I would like to see us begin to invest in our
futures, both Utah and Idaho and develop these highways and improve
these highways, make them safer, maintain the traffic patterns that
we have and do a better job. Logan Canyon is certainly nothing to
be ashamed of. It is. a beautiful canyon. I don't want anything to
happen to Logan Canyon simply because the comments about the canyon
are how wonderful and how marvelous and how unique! It does have
environmental impact on anybody who comes through it. Everyone
enjoys it. But nobody enjoys it when their family and friends are
being marred or are injured or even killed in those canyons. So
that's my interest in coming to this meeting and I wanted to let -::1
you know I am out of state, but we do share an economic bond here
with Highway 89 and we need to do something desperately with it.
One other comment, in the hotel business in Montpelier, questions
have come up to how this study was done and what is being asked.
And I remember just getting into the hotel business with my father
years and years ago and CH2M Hill was around then and doing studies
at that point in time, and about two years ago I had a chance to
sit in on a review of a study program with power utility company
and heard some of the praises for CH2M Hill. They are a reputable
company and the state did hire someone with the proper background
to come in and make an objective analysis of this kind of a
project.
The other part of this is that the level of service and capacity
have been talked about a little bit. The level of service is not
up to par and the capacity is not either. If it is now it
certainly can't be for future growth of what I think Bear Lake is
going to need, what Jackson Hole and Yellowstone, and what Utah is
going to need. Utah has more national parks than any other state,
I believe. You are going to have more travel, you are going to
have more traffic. Prepare yourselves so it is not a problem for
you. Get ready for it now, if it is not already a start of being
too late.
Question: (Comments regarding Logan Canyon becoming too much like
Ogden Canyon, Provo Canyon and Weber Canyon)
Page 13 of 16
Question: I've heard a lot of talk about the actual traffic flow,
I guess my question is to the people of UDOT, and that is why isn't
there more encouragement of the use of pullovers for slow moving
vehicles. I'm thinking particularly of some canyons that are a lot
like Logan Canyon in Idaho in Payette Canyon and the Salmon River
Canyon where there are a lot of pullovers like there are here but a
quarter of a mile before the pullover it says "Please use slow
moving vehicle pullover coming up." Every time I'm in a traffic
jam up there I always wonder why Utah doesn't do that. I know they
probably don't have a law to make it illegal to stack up cars like
a lot of western states do, but I think a lot more could be done in
the use of pullovers. I think they unjam traffic a lot better even
than a third lane does. So I would like to ask them why there
isn't more encouragement for the use of that kind of thing.
S. Nuffer: I think what you have identified is one of the alter­natives
that we will be looking at.
Question: It seems less expensive than other alternatives.
S. Nuffer: We've had experience with some of these kinds of things
with mixed results. This would need to be coupled with
enforcement.
Question: There are a lot of timid drivers who won't just pull off
into one when they see one. They need the warning that it is
coming up.
M. Johnson: I heard an interesting comment in regard to the
proposal this afternoon. This was also raised at the earlier
meeting that was referred to by the press. One problem is that if
people pullout, they have a problem getting back into the line of
traffic. Now I'm not saying that is insurmountable, but all of us
if we are driving in a canyon, for Pete's Sake let someone back in
if they have pulled out to let traffic move on.
Comment: Usually they are quite clumped up. I don't think getting
back into the traffic is a problem.
M. Johnson: Any other ideas as far as alternatives that might be
considered? As we have said we have no preconceived ideas of what
should be done in Logan Canyon. We have identified what we think
are problems, but as far solving those problems, that remains open
to the next task of study.
R. Laneer: Just a point of view, accidents and safety on the
highway shouldn't be looked at as strictly an engineering problem.
It is a behavioral problem. Accidents take place because people
respond in certain ways to the hazards or conditions of the road,
especially regarding such things as pullouts and passing lanes and
so on. And I don't think engineers are competent to predict the
Page 14 of 16
behavior of people. I don't see you strengthening your team by
having anybody on it who is competent on how people behave on the
road. And I think engineering solutions and problems of that kind
are never going to get down to be bottom of it.
M. Johnson: Thank you. That is an interesting point. Are you
looking for a job?
Question: I would like to know how many highway projects CH2M Hill
has worked on.
CH2M Hill: They are so numerous I could stay here all night and
flick them off.
M. Johnson: I know we are presently working on one in the Boise
office and just completing the Broadway-Chinden connector which
connects the freeway into downtown Boise - 40 to 50 million dollar
project. Interestingly, the project engineer on that project
previously completed a major viaduct system in the San Francisco
Bay area and this was a project that involved not the same types of
environment we are dealing with here, but a very sensitive urban
environment. Consideration for impact and mitigation measures had
to be incorporated into the project, so the company has had a great
deal of experience dealing with sensitive highway projects.
R. Lukez: It might be better to explain how many projects you have
worked on similar to Logan Canyon.
(At this point a brochure was presented to Rudy Lukez.)
R. Lukez: I'd just like to add a couple of things. A couple of
times during the discussion the term environmental analysis has
been used. For those of you who aren't familiar with the NEPA
process from 1970, that decision hasn't been made yet to do an
environmental assessment or an environmental analysis. There may
even be an environmental impact statement done later on down the
road. As an ID team that still has to be decided upon - exactly
what the final is going to be. I personally prefer the term
environmental study because it doesn't have any technical
connection to it yet.
The other thing is a couple of people mentioned during this time
they are concerned about people getting killed on the highway and
I'm sure everybody will agree that we don't want to see anybody get
killed, but we have had very few people get killed over the highway
the past number of years and it turns out that one of the most
recent deaths on the highway now is being arraigned in one of the
local courts as a murder charge.
Question: How many deaths have occurred in Logan Canyon?
Page 15 of 16
R. Lukez: I think the number of deaths is very low, perhaps 5 or
6. An interesting comparison was done during the 1979 activities
of safety. It showed that the most dangerous part of the highway
was the section that was improved up to Right Hand Fork, by a
considerable amount, and that afterwards, the highway was much
safer and a lot of the highway patrolmen that were interviewed
during those studies said that it was primarily because people are
a little more careful when they know there is an unimproved highway
ahead and that they won't speed up and pass people at those times.
M. Johnson: Since we haven't completed the analysis I don't think
we should draw any conclusions, second, I think it is very
important that we provide you with the findings that we ultimately
come up with. We do have a mailing list for the project and we
will be sending out the information to the people on our mailing
list.
I would like to mention our other public involvement attempts that
you can use to get information or make comments on the project.
Valley Engineering is our subcontractor and we try to make informa­tion
available to Gale Larson of Valley Engineering. We have
produced fact sheets, summaries of the project and given them to
Valley Engineering, libraries, UDOT and CH2M Hill. We are also
trying to find a location to spread the material in Rich County
area. Any of you who have stated that you are from that area
tonight you might just let me know what would be a good location to
place information about the project in the future.
I want to say we are going to have additional meetings; we have
tentatively talked about a meeting in the Rich County area. I
think there have been some comments made tonight that will make us
further evaluate that possibility. The next step that we have is
development of alternatives. And I assure that those alternatives
will be very wide in scope. I mean we are not going to come up
with just ideas for bulldozing Highway 89 through Logan Canyon.
Most of all, I want to say that all of your input is appreciated. I
don't care if you are arguing with our figures or not. As has been
stated in a local newspaper it is the questions that keeps us
honest and I can assure that we at CH2M Hill are very concerned
about our integrity and our credibility as our information goes.
If you have a question, please let us know.
Jim Naegle: Let me make one comment. UDOT went through an exten­sive
process in selecting a consultant and we are very satisfied
with the competency of CH2M HIll.
Meeting was adjourned.
Page 16 of 16